By: Beanie Geoghegan
Ray Bradbury once said, “You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.” With all the fuss in recent years over whether books should be, or were being, “banned”, we have failed to address the proverbial elephant parading around the room and the destruction it’s leaving in its wake.
People, young and old, are simply not reading books. At least they aren’t reading books at the same rate they once did. There is no need to spend much time here proving that this is the case. Others have written about this issue extensively and provided clear evidence to support the claim. We know from recent surveys that the percentage of adults reading for pleasure was a mere 16% in 2023. College professors from elite universities lament the fact that their students can’t or won’t read the books they assign.
Sadly, the one place we’d all expect to see whole books being read is in K-12 schools, but as Holly Korbey and Karen Vaites note, there are now Language Arts curricula that are void of actual whole books. Their findings are supported in a recent article for the National Review by Daniel Buck, who asks the question, “Why aren’t students reading books?” He goes on to suggest, “The aforementioned curriculum provides a straightforward answer: Schools aren’t assigning them.”
The problem has been clearly identified: People of all ages are reading fewer books. Why does that matter? Why should we care? When we have access to millions of nuggets of information at our fingertips and so many other forms of entertainment readily available to us, what role does the practice of reading books play in today’s society? Is it an antiquated habit destined to be left behind by technology and the busyness of the modern world? Is it a practice worth salvaging?
The short answer is yes. The long answer is still yes, but with justification. The act of reading whole books is a worthy endeavor for so many reasons. Of course, one reason to read books is to acquire knowledge you didn’t have before. Sure, you can search for information on the internet, but you may not comprehend or retain that knowledge as well. Research suggests that “students who read on paper consistently scored higher on comprehension tests than those who read the same material on screens. Researchers call this the ‘screen inferiority effect’—meaning that digital reading leads to lower information retention and understanding.”
Of course, reading books doesn’t just give you access to useful information about the world in which we live; it also provides insight about other people and ourselves that enables us to understand better how and why humans behave in certain ways in the world. As C.S. Lewis beautifully puts it, “We read to know we are not alone.”
As far removed from place and time as The Odyssey is, through his poetry, Homer still teaches us that trials, triumphs, tragedy, and testing of character are a part of the human experience. Dickens proves to us time and again in such treasures and A Christmas Carol that redemption is possible, even for those whose hearts seem set in stone. Tolstoy powerfully reveals the destruction of selfish love while beautifully demonstrating the power of rightly-ordered love in Anna Karenina. In the words of F. Scott Fitzgerald, “That is part of the beauty of all literature. You discover that your longings are universal longings, that you’re not lonely and isolated from anyone. You belong.”
These are not contemporary works, yet their themes and lessons still resonate today because of their timeless and universal themes and lessons. They still shape our thoughts and character as we slowly pore over and contemplate the multifaceted stories. Books cultivate virtues in ways no app, movie, or television series can. They also nurture a level of understanding and compassion for our fellow humans, allowing us to offer grace when they fall short of our expectations.
So, we read books to gather useful information about the world and to gain a better understanding of ourselves and others, but there is another important reason to read books. In an ever-increasing, fast-paced world full of seemingly constant and mindless noise, video clips, and “hot take” social media posts with limited characters, whether we realize it or not, our minds are starving for rich, meaningful texts. Our bodies are craving extended periods of time to be still, read, and think.
The practice of reading books should be salvaged and revived for much lighter reasons as well. They can entertain us and make us laugh without the worry of an unexpected ad popping up to interrupt the story. Books, and the stories they tell, can also be a bridge connecting people who may otherwise have nothing in common. It’s not unheard of for two strangers to strike up a conversation in a coffee shop or airport over a book one of them is reading. Sometimes the conversation ends there, but occasionally a lasting friendship is born.
There are plenty of options today for filling our time and minds. While reading books may have slipped in popularity as an option across age groups in recent years, the argument can be made that it is a ritual worth restoring to the top of the list. And Mortimer J. Adler’s words remind us that it’s not a competition: “In the case of good books, the point is not to see how many of them you can get through, but rather how many can get through to you.”
